


thanatophobia

by ikijai



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: M/M, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 16:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13438668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikijai/pseuds/ikijai
Summary: David knows this man isn't an injured bird. He isn't there involuntarily.





	thanatophobia

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: this is totally theoretical.

There’s an unyielding ache deep in his bones the instant that van disappears down the vacant street. It won’t die, not like his insides did a year ago when everything was taken. Not like Pete Castiglione did over and over until all that was left of Frank Castle was teeth and blood.

The places they used to know together dissipate day by day, physically and metaphorically and every other way that digs skin deep until David’s throat is tight and it’s hard to breath. He drinks because he can’t eat, can’t open those damned devices and stare at bright screens like it’s his sole defense mechanism.

It only makes it more difficult to tell the difference between what transpired and what he wanted to in his too-imaginative head.

It’s sunny but it is so, so dark.

  
                                 --

  
They talked in that old basement some days, talk that had nothing to do with illegal operations. They talked like human beings. And even if it’d been just because Frank was too tired or beat up to fight it, David clings to it like everything he’s ever known depends on it. Like the universe depends on it.

When he gets too drunk, he thinks theirs did.

  
                                  --

  
He dreams about his wife kissing _him_ , about how disturbed he’d been when he understood which one of them he’d been jealous of.

Instances feel like days. Things’re different. They’re too different no matter which patterns they try to follow from before he died. Sarah stares at his profile some days like she knows, lips parting to ask the damning question until she seems to think better of it. They take turns spending isolated nights in the bed they used to undress in. They take the kids to the park or the zoo out of the need to pretend things are any type of okay.

David can’t remember when they’d stopped doing it together.

  
                                  --

  
_It’s not a divorce_ , she tells him. They just need to spend time on their own to remember who they were before all this.

 _You can talk to the kids whenever you want_.

But it’s a cheap trick because a divorce is exactly what it is, he thinks. It’s a divorce when Zach and Leo are taken some place downtown and things are packed up. It’s a divorce that overwhelming year he’s a kid and his dad drives to the opposite side of the continent. It is when tears drip into the drink in his trembling hands. He thinks his eyes are as dark as Frank’s these days.

It’s instances like this he understands that it wasn’t some terminal illness made up by doctors that his mother died from.

It’s no wonder he’s better at doing other’s dirty work. It’s no wonder he turned to objects when people became disappointments.

  
                                   --

  
The phone doesn’t ring for days on end, time dragging itself like a kick to the gut. It's ten days at first. Then he stops keeping track.

David picks it up out of necessity, dialing that number like it’s purely muscle memory, not even really thinking about what making the phone call could mean.

“Hey, uh,” he begins when the other side of the phone tells him to leave a message after the tone in the generic voice that isn’t Frank’s deep timbre. “It’s David. I know it’s been a while but I was thinking—shit, I don’t know what I was thinking. But it’d be good to know how you’ve been doing, y’know? It’d be good to talk to you.”

David pulls at his tresses too tightly, biting down on his bottom lip with enough pressure to break the delicate skin. Yearning is something he’s well-versed in. He did it for a year. It used to be his one true ideology.

Still, it sure as hell doesn't feel like justice.

  
                                  --

  
A day and a half later, he’s sent a text with an address from an unknown number. He wants to snort at the irony of it.

_Downtown Brooklyn. Twenty minute drive._

Of course Frank didn’t leave town.

David wants to be pissed, wants to understand why Frank wouldn’t reach out to him if he'd been there the whole time. But the phone works both ways and Frank doesn’t owe him shit. It’d probably be easier just to lock the door and kill the phone.

  
                                   --

  
Neither of them talk at first, tip-toeing idly around each other in the tiny kitchenette. It’s dusty, worn down like it’s been lived in for years instead of days.

Frank isn’t beat up, though. There’re no black-blue bruises along his jaw or his face, which tells David he’s at least trying.

“This what you’ve been up to?” David says. It’s less of an inquiry than it is a statement.

“No different from before,” Frank shrugs, dark eyes keen, just as intense as they’d been all those days ago. Then he’s answering David’s unspoken question. “I’m okay.”

He knows it’s bullshit because Frank’s looking somewhere to the left as he speaks and the words are too distinct.

“You look tired,” David says.

“You look thin,” Frank utters back.

 _Touché_ , he thinks. And they’re not yelling, but the words burn in his temple like an iron that’s been left on too long.

Frank ducks his head then. It makes David upset. Upset because Frank’s name’s been wiped from the system but he didn’t use the money to leave town. Upset because he could've dialed weeks ago or because he's kicking jittery feet by the door like he's the one who's intruding on something private.

It's almost picturesque, Frank standing there like a stray dog, like he’ll dart at any second if he feels threatened. His eyes are oxymoronic, telling a tale that's soft and sad, irate and tired with just a hint of dejection between a pair of dilated pupils.

“I’ve been, uh,” Frank clears his throat, twists his head further from David’s unshakable stare. “I’ve been trying to work things out.”

“Which things?”

“You know which things, David.”

And he does, knows it torturously and thoroughly. He sees these _things_ every time he’s engulfed in darkness. It’s the understatement of the century.

“Want me to get you somethin’? Don’t have much yet, but if you want anything—” Frank offers, letting the sentence trail off.

“You don't have to do that.” He pretends not to know what they’re really discussing.

“Yeah, I do,” Frank says. When he speaks this time, his tone is sure, his eyes don't deviate from David’s.

“You didn’t, uh,” David says, and it’s his turn to be insecure. “You didn’t—”

“Didn’t wanna impose,” Frank interrupts.

“Oh.”

David expects disgust—a downward twist to a pair of dry lips and eyebrows knit together. Instead, the other man inhales deep.

“I thought you’d know what I been up to,” he utters.

David laughs involuntarily. “I don’t do that type of thing anymore.” He motions his fingers like he’s typing, thinks he sees Frank’s lip tick up at the corner. “Besides, I’ve developed a bit of a distaste for people.”

Frank snorts deep in his throat. “That’s not exactly a development, Lieberman.”

“Yeah, well,” David utters. “It is what it is.”

David brings his palm up to rest at his jaw, doesn’t miss the twitch in Frank’s own hand when he does. All they used to do was talk, but now that the mission is over, there isn’t much to talk about.

It's inevitable for them to be like this.

“How’s Sarah doing? The kids?”

“Oh,” David says, taken aback but not too shocked. He bites down on his tongue, forces his tone to steady. “They’re doing good.”

There’s a break in Frank’s poker face. It's forlorn and tender until he seems to realize it’s showing through his demeanor. Either way, his hard stare tells a different tale, one that knows something’s wrong. It’s the same stare that used to intimidate David, used to make his his heart thump dangerously in his chest. But being under its power now, he’s put at an odd type of ease. Frank doesn’t say anything, though. Whatever it is that's at the tip of his tongue, he keeps to himself.

It isn't too difficult to read Frank, even now. It's obvious he wants to yell, wants to tell David off for the same things he puts himself through. But he doesn't.

 _You fucked everything up_ , he imagines Frank’s declaration inches from his face. _You let the universe slip between your fingers after every damn thing I did to get you back to it._

It's theoretical, it isn't happening. But it's too much and he knows Frank can tell. The other man is good at reading David, too.

The idea was to make sure Frank was okay, but he's uncertain if he himself can be tacked with that label. Is it even possible for a pair of dead men to be okay? Can it really exist outside of idyllic nightmares?

Something tries to pry its way out of David’s throat, so he does the one thing he’s good at when panic tries to own him.

He's nearly out the door when Frank decides to speak. “Take care of yourself, David. Don't be an idiot.”

He thinks there's a _please_ whispered at the end of the sentence, but it's difficult to tell when all David sees is Frank’s taut jaw.

He’s turned his back to the other man when he utters, “You gonna leave town while I'm gone, Frank?”

He tilts his head so Frank only sees his profile in the doorway. He doesn't want him to see what's playing on his face. It probably looks as terrible as it feels, gnawing at his intestines.

They're both used to disappointment. They both know what that's like.

“Don’t think so,” Frank says, low, honest. It's sounds like a promise, like he’s telling the truth when he says he won't turn his back. “Keep your phone on, yeah? We’ll talk.”

  
                                  --

  
David dreams about one of the talks they had in the basement.

“You ever think about dying?” David’d been drunk, tired out of his mind.

He’d expected Frank to tell him off for waking him with dumb questions at an ungodly hour. Instead, he inhaled deep, didn’t open his eyes.

“All the time,” he’d uttered, and David thinks about it even after he’s up for the day.

Frank nearly looks innocent with his eyes shut, different without black-blue bruises or teeth biting down on a trembling bottom lip. He doesn't look capable of killing when he’s like that. Or maybe David just wants it to be true. Maybe he needs it to be.

  
                                  --

 

David watches Frank work on pipes under the sink. The other man’s tone is lighter, less tired.

He’d dialed him up that next day.

“I’d make you some tea but, uh. The water isn’t on yet.”

“Thanks. That’s okay.”

Frank pulls himself out from under the sink, throwing a dirty rag onto the noticeably less dirty table top.

“You look different.” David says it because he didn’t yesterday.

Frank’s head tilts almost undetectably, jaw twitching.

“Good different,” David tacks on to the end.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They order take out a while later, talking until David’s back aches from leaning against the wall, insides itching.

David can tell Frank is trying not to smile when he says _thai isn’t nearly as good as your pasta_. He notices how the other man tries to joke when he’s uncertain. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s obvious.

David thinks that his tone might deepen again, might take on that defensive stature, but it doesn’t. There’s zero evidence of broken objects in the kitchenette, no proof of fists beating into drywall or pounding on desks.

Frank tells him about the job he got downtown, that he put the money away until it’s needed. He seems to be at peace with things.

David isn’t naive enough to think it’s permanent. He still thinks Frank might bolt for the door if he says the wrong thing, thinks of those animals he used to tend to as a kid in a different kind of basement, how’d they’d worm out of his tight hold as soon as he was done stitching them back together. But this man isn’t an injured bird. He isn’t here involuntarily.

“It’s good to know things are working out for you, Frank.”

Frank nods, and David’s seen the gesture often enough to know it means thank you.

“You keeping out of trouble, Lieberman?”

“Oh yeah,” David says, and he smiles when Frank punches his chest with barely any force. “I’m working a desk job. Pretty extraordinary waste of time, not too interesting. It pays the bills.”

David decides to keep going when Frank remains silent. “How’re Karen and Curtis doing?”

He’s testing him and Frank knows it.

“You want to know if I've been spending time with them, yeah? You want to know if I kept you in the dark.”

“That isn't all I want to know.” There's something unspoken to it, something that says _I want to know if you've been taken care of, too_. He can only hope Frank knows that's what the change to his tone means.

“They’re good,” Frank utters, ignores the other part to the question. “They’re safe.”

David wants to ask if he's seen them in person, if he's positive. But he doesn't want to dig too deep, doesn't want to seem like he's prying into private things.

It appears to hit Frank the instant the thought passes through David’s head. He sighs when it’s David’s turn to play the silent treatment.

“I’ve been going to Curt’s group therapy from time to time. Haven’t seen Karen yet, just been reading her stories in the paper.”

His tone isn’t unhappy, but it isn't all there. It's tolarable, says  _you're not the only one I disappeared from._

And David takes it. There is so much more that he could take.

  
                                  --

 

He takes the kids out for ice cream on a sunny day. It’s warmer out, proof of time passing.

They tell him about normal things like they can tell he needs to hear it. Zach gets along with Leo. Leo wraps him tight in a hug before it’s time to go.

They ask about _Pete_ and David tells them he’s fine even if it isn’t entirely true.

They don’t ask why they don’t see him as often. They don’t ask what it’s like to be a dead man.

 

                                  --

  
Too many days pass before the phone buzzes again, too many days alone with his thoughts and a disgusting bottle of whiskey.

The lack of Frank’s presence makes the ticking louder, pounding in his temple whether he’s upstairs or downstairs or outside. It teases him in its absence.

He didn’t realize how dependent he’d been on their partnership until it became infrequent. He starts digging again, starts checking police cameras and old footage by abandoned buildings used to traffic drugs. He checks databases, bridges. It’s desperate, leads to nothing but self-induced insanity until today.

“Sorry.” The single word over the phone echoes. It’s so ironic, so deprived of meaning that it makes David want to laugh. _Sorry, sorry, sorry_. “I, uh, meant to call before today. I got in some trouble.”

The urgency in Frank’s tone has David on his feet. He isn't joking. “Trouble?”

“Yeah.” It sounds like Frank’s trying not to pant, the word dragged out in too many syllables. “Think I broke some shit, y’know. It’s difficult to breathe.”

“Don't move,” David says.

“Damn,” Frank utters, and he is joking this time. “Was just ‘bout to throw a party.”

 

By the time David pulls up to Frank’s beaten place in the bad part of town, the other man is passed out.

“Shit,” David utters, ignores the trembling to his hands as he pulls out the first aid kit. Most of Frank’s injures are internal, but there’s a gaping wound on his torso that’s already turning too many different colors. “ _Shit_.”

He gets down on his knees, begins poking and prodding immediately. He tries to keep puke down as he threads the needle through thick skin. It’s damp with infection, smells like decay.

“Jesus, Frank,” he says under his breath. The hell did he _do_?

At least he isn't dead, David tells himself. Dead would definitely be worse than this.

He thinks about Frank’s dog metaphor and this most definitely isn't what it meant.

  
Frank wakes up by the time it’s dark, eyes darting around until they land on David. What he says sounds like _thanks_ , but the word is dry and low and infuriating.

He tries to sit up, but David puts pressure on his shoulder until he lays back again. Frank twitches at first, but ultimately, he complies. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“I should've called sooner. I know that.”

“Do you?” David pushes.

“Yeah. It's just that, uh,” he clears his throat, ducking his head to his chest. “Things’ve been tough.”

David doesn't have to be drunk this time to know he wants to punch the other man square in the jaw. He wants to yell at the top of his lungs, wants to get inches from Frank to make him understand that he isn't the only person in the universe who's known trifling, unbearable pain at their own fingertips. But he's whispering instead, and he knows undoubtedly that he’s just barely dodging a bullet.

“I thought Pete didn’t get his hands dirty?"

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do, Lieberman,” Frank grits through his teeth.

“You’re the only friend I have, Frank.”

“That what you and I are, David?”

They used to be partners, used to work well together when they weren’t at each other’s throats. Before that, they were strangers who told themselves they wanted the same thing. But this is different. _I don’t know_ , David thinks. His head is too dizzy and his heart is thumping. There’s something else kicking there too, something he doesn’t understand. Something he isn’t sure he wants to.

Billy Russo is as good as dead. Everyone else involved is dead. But anyone who’d bother to look close enough would be able to tell that Frank’s war isn't over. It's ironed into his skin, inked into his bones. It keeps him going on days like this.

It’s sick, toxic.

David doesn't try to touch Frank when sits up again. He tears the thread from his torso, probably doesn’t even know about the one dangling off his bicep. He’s up then, and his steps are tentative, unsteady like a wild animal that’s been tamed but not yet domesticated.

“Why don’t you just go home, David.”

“That it, then?” David pushes back, gets inches from Frank’s tense face. “You get your ass kicked, I fix you up and you throw me out? You know, if you didn’t want me here, you should’ve said so in the first place. You shouldn’t’ve picked up the phone when I called that day.”

Frank’s jaw twitches then. “If you need to think that, then you think that. But you know deep down it’s a pile of bullshit.”

David can’t stop the sound that escapes his throat. He laughs to disguise the truth, laughs so he won’t turn into something he despises. “Bullshit is you pretending you’re better off on your own.”

“ _Jesus christ_.” Frank’s yelling, then he isn’t. The words tumble out in tandem, knocking into David over and over. “Let me ask you something, which one of us lived in a goddamn basement for a year? Which one of us ignored their own damn family while they suffered?”

Frank’s got a tendency for this, to bite when he’s pissed, to turn cold and distant and dark. But David’s got a tendency to take it in stride like some kind of pain addict. He takes it like a drug, inhales it like oxygen.

The other man’s got both hands wrapped tight around the doorframe like he doesn’t actually want David to go as much as he thinks he does. He isn’t insensitive enough to be specific, doesn’t mention their names or how long it’s been since David’s truly been home.

“How much longer do you think you can keep up like this, Frank, huh?” His own words tumble out, pounding through his veins quicker than they leave his parted lips. “Because let me tell you something. You keep going like this, you’ll die for real. And I know you probably don’t buy it, but I give a damn about whether or not that happens. I don’t wanna watch you torture yourself like this. You should’ve gotten out of town when you had the chance to. But not the goddamn Punisher, right? He just can’t let things go ‘til everything’s dead.”

Frank’s eyes shut then, and his voice sounds like tears. “Leave, David.”

“Okay,” David shrugs, tries to swallow the thickness in his own voice as he goes for the now unblocked door. “Keep the first aid kit,” he utters. “You’ll need it.”

  
                                  --

 

He gets drunk and stays drunk for hours. He feels like his dad, feels like he walked out on his family though it happened the opposite way around.

He ignores the bright screens until the urge is unignorable. Keeping up with Homeland and the NYPD is enough to make him ill. There’s theft and drug busts, the occasional murder in a dark alley. Despite everything, it puts him at ease to know Frank’s got nothing to do with any of it. It lets him breath properly even as he drags himself around half-dressed.

Maybe the things people said about him were true, he thinks. Maybe a basement dweller is the only thing he knows how to be.

David’s known from the beginning that Frank’s a destructive weapon, that he’s tension in a bottle, a trigger waiting to go off. But he didn’t prepare to be on the other end when it did, the punches landing hard and painfully. He didn’t mind the things he’d been thrown, but it felt wrong to throw them back.

He feels like a traitor.

The t.v. doesn’t calm him down. Going out doesn't. Nothing does.

  
                                  --

 

Frank shows up at his doorstep unexpectedly. It’s been so long David doesn’t bother trying to recall how many days it’s been this time around. The other man doesn’t wait for invitation, doesn’t have to.

“You still trust me, David?”

The hollowed out, deep spaces under his eyes tell him Frank hasn’t been sleeping nearly as often as he should be. The bruises have faded, at least.

“Yeah, I do.”

 _You piece of shit_ , David thinks because he can’t get it out around the knot in his throat. _You goddamned piece of shit for doubting that._

He reaches his hand out to rest a hand on the other man’s shoulder, is thankful when Frank doesn’t twitch back from it. After all, he’s just as touch starved as David is.

“You been drinking?” he utters.

David ignores the question. Frank doesn't have to say anything about why the house is so devoid. There's one less car in the driveway and too many layers of dust on the kitchen table. It's obvious.

It's not the dishwasher that needs to be put back together this time.

“You knew about this.”

“Yeah."

David resists the urge to push a hand through his disheveled tresses. He steps back instead, letting Frank decide if he wants to step any further than an inch from the doorway. “Then why didn’t you tell me off for letting it happen?”

“Figured it’s difficult enough as it is,” Frank utters. “Figured it’s been killing you.”

David ducks his head then, inhales deep through his nostrils in a useless attempt to shake the unadulterated tension inside. Frank seems to detect it, too.

“You want to go for a drive?”

David doesn’t give it a second thought, doesn’t think about the fact that not too long ago they’d been yelling ugly, dirty words in each other’s faces like the damaged individuals they’d been from the very beginning.

  
They’re outside town by the time it’s dark. It brings him peace, forces the other kinds out. David keeps Frank in his peripheral vision when he isn’t looking at him directly. He watches him drive with one hand on the wheel, the other occasionally tapping the dashboard.

“You didn't do that, y’know, yeah?” Frank begins after a prolonged period of silence. “You didn't push them out. People, they just—from time to time they don't know how to be there when things get drenched in shit.”

“Your wife and kids are dead and mine are downtown,” David utters. “You didn’t try to make me fix that.”

“That's not my job, David. I can't drag your ass down there.”

“Why didn't you listen when everyone told you to leave?”

He sees Frank’s jaw clench, fingers tightening over the wheel at the mention of the sore topic. David doesn't back down. He didn't then and he won't now. “Doesn't make no goddamn difference where I am.”

David snorts. “Dinah Madani doesn't think so.”

Frank’s eyebrows knit tightly together, but there isn’t any bite to what he says next. “You and Madani on speaking terms?”

“Well, it’s one-sided.”

“Thought you were done with all that.”

“Old habits die hard, I guess,” David offers. He’s looking out the window, watching trees blend together until it’s impossible to see them individually. “You're too different to know that.”

“That it, David?” The other man tightens bruised knuckles over the wheel again as if to solidify the point. His voice is deeper, more trapped in his throat. “I’m different than I was before?”

“Maybe I just want to think that you’re trying like you said.”

“Yeah,” Frank utters. “Maybe you're as dumb as you look. I’m an ugly damned mess, David. That type of thing doesn’t change.”

“You’ve never been any kind of ugly to me.”

“You're drunk.”

David sighs. “Doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

“Guess I deserved that,” Frank says, and for the first time in a while, David isn’t sure which part he’s talking about.

“You’d be shocked by what you deserve, if you knew.”

  
                                  --

 

They’re back at David’s place when things take another turn. He almost wishes he were still intoxicated, wishes they were out there driving.

Frank steps through the doorway, David shambling after like he's doomed if he tries anything but.

“You didn’t tell me why you showed up tonight.”

“Didn’t think I had to.”

David leaves the key in the lock at the door. “Well, I think I deserve to hear you say it.”

“Jesus christ,” Frank grits through his teeth. He’s a shadow at this distance. “It’s all about that with you, isn’t it? Telling people what they _deserve_ like some obnoxious dick.”

“You're not telling me I’m wrong.”

The other man scoffs in what he thinks is disbelief or disgust. “That tongue of yours’ll get you killed one day, Lieberman.”

“You wanna hit me over it?” David tests.

Frank turns to him with something wild sparked up in his eyes, something David hasn't bared witness to in months. His tongue darts out to wet dry lips, and he twitches for a moment, like he's considering doing it. David knows he won't.

“You've done it before, why don't you just do it?”

There’re tears in Frank’s eyes when a heavy palm rests against the back David’s neck and he can't tell which one of them is trembling.

The other man’s forehead comes to rest against David’s. Usually, he'd have a couple inches height advantage, but his back is drooped over, jumbled head knocking the drywall behind them.

“Don't do this to yourself,” Frank whispers. The words are tough like an order, but he knows the truth behind them, hears the pleading in the disguise. “Don't think about that.”

It's only at this distance that David tastes his own tears. They're warm, teasing and taunting like they don't belong as they drip down his throat, over Frank’s other hand where it’s tightening there so incredibly carefully it's insane to think this man’s killed between the same fingers.

David’s pulse doesn't stop, it invigorates, it forces him to make the decision he does. Frank’s lips taste like tar and old bullets, but his tongue is entirely opposite. It tastes like trust. Like intoxicating days in too-tight spaces surrounded by nothing and no one. It’s less of a kiss than it is a preventative measure.

David leans into it, let's his tired eyes shut for the first time in too long. This kind of darkness isn't so debilitating.

“Easy, David,” Frank utters. It isn't a warning. He's kissing him back. “Take it easy.”

David’s in too deep when the wretched, broken sounds pulls its way through his throat. He feels Frank’s thumb at his lip, at the place the sound escapes from.

“I got you,” Frank whispers the words David’d said over his dying body at the tail end of last year. Frank holds onto the taller man like he’d seen this coming, like he can stop it all from happening. He repeats the phrase, against David’s jaw and over his teeth. _I got you, I got you, I got you._ It's the mantra he wants to play until the end of time.

It’s enough to keep him upright, enough to look the other man in his dark eyes and nowhere else until he’s certain it’s infatuation tying his stomach into knots. He doesn't think, just does.

He can’t help but to wonder about the things it took to get to this point, the things they watched die too many times.

Did the ends justify the means? _Do they deserve this?_

It's too tempting. It's a trap.

Still, no matter how temporary it is, David holds onto it like the universe depends on it.

As far as he's concerned, it does.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for checking this out!!


End file.
